There are less than two weeks to go in the legislative session and lawmakers have already approved a record 38 billion dollar spending plan for the fiscal year starting in July. Senate President Page Cortez highlights a few of the major investments thanks to federal coronavirus aid…
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Also included was an 800 dollar teacher pay raise and a roughly two and a half percent higher education faculty pay raise.

U-L System President Jim Henderson says faculty at their schools are still about 8,000 to 10,000 dollars a year behind the southern regional average and this increase gets them about a quarter of the way there. Henderson says the budget fully funds TOPS and even increases the size of the Go Grant program.
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Despite the big increase in higher ed investment this year, Henderson says the state still hasn’t made up for the steep budget cuts enacted during the Jindal Administration.
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A House committee has rejected an effort to give 1,500 Louisiana inmates convicted on non-unanimous verdicts another chance at another trial. Matt Doyle has the story.
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